Systems and methods for distributed conferencing

ABSTRACT

Distributed conferencing systems and methods provide local meeting contents to remote participants. In accordance with various example embodiments, a plurality of authorized source units generate media content responsive to and representative of respective content for a meeting. In response to the generated media content, one or more data streams are developed at each authorized source, each stream being a separately-decodable real-time representation of at least a portion of the media content generated at the respective authorized source. The separate data streams are transmitted by each authorized source to a common multicast IP group address for retrieval/access by remote participants.

RELATED PATENT DOCUMENTS

This patent document is a continuation under 35 U.S.C. § 120 of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 15/146,335 filed on May 4, 2016 (U.S. Pat.No. 9,762,633); which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 13/926,385 filed on Jun. 25, 2013 (U.S. Pat. No. 9,338,221); whichis a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/618,113 filedon Nov. 13, 2009 (U.S. Pat. No. 8,498,725), which claims the benefit,under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e), of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser.No. 61/114,734 filed on Nov. 14, 2008, and entitled “Systems and Methodsfor Distributed Conferencing;” each of these patent documents is fullyincorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to systems and methods forproviding conference meeting contents to remote participants in adistributed manner.

BACKGROUND

Many collaborative groups and associations rely on holding conferencesto advance their work and disseminate information. While attending aconference meeting in person allows the attendee to experience andparticipate in the meeting as intended, remote participants (e.g.,attending over the Internet) often are subjected to a much lower qualityexperience due to pre-distribution of older versions of presentationslides, poor audio quality, transmission interruptions due to servercrashes, and so forth. These factors diminish the ability for remoteparticipants to attend the meeting in real time in any meaningful way.In current systems for distributing “live” conference meeting contentsto remote participants, the contents are gathered and managed by acentral server. As such, any problem experienced by the server affectsall of the meeting contents routed through the server. For instance,server-related disruptions such as a server crash will affect all of thecontent provided to that server.

Multicast distribution allows for one-to-many communication withoutrequiring prior knowledge of the receivers. However, multicastdistribution does not require prior knowledge of the senders, which canlead to confusion regarding origination, particularly when there aremultiple (or an undetermined number) of possible senders. Briefly,multicast uses network infrastructure efficiently by requiring thesource to send a packet only once, even if it needs to be delivered to alarge number of receivers. The nodes in the network take care ofreplicating the packet to reach multiple receivers only where necessary.A multicast group IP address is used by sources and the receivers tosend and receive content. Sources use the multicast group IP address asthe destination address in their data packets. Receivers use thismulticast group IP address to inform the network that they areinterested in receiving packets sent to that group.

In certain conferencing approaches, the contents delivered to remoteparticipants are gathered into three groups, namely the audio stream forthe session, the presentation slides, and the notes and commentsdeveloped by scribes (referred to as “jabber”). These three groups ofmeeting contents are managed differently by different people, and assuch preparations are made before the meeting to ensure that allcontents are properly delivered. For example, the audio stream may bemanaged through a centralized server, separate from the servers throughwhich the presentation slides and jabber content are routed. Each ofthese servers may be prone to crashing, resulting in disruption of allthe content provided by that server. While interruption of thepresentation slides may be mitigated by distributing a copy of theslides ahead of the meeting, the slide contents are often being revisedup to the time of the meeting, and thus the remote participants cannotalways rely on materials provided prior to the meeting.

These and other issues remain challenging to multicast-type and otherconferencing approaches.

SUMMARY

Aspects of the present invention are directed to conferencing systemsand methods in which locally-generated conference meeting contents areprovided in real time to remotely-located participants, for example viamulticast broadcasting without the use of a centralized server. Theseand other aspects of the present invention are exemplified in a numberof implementations and applications, some of which are shown in thefigures and characterized in the claims that follow.

According to an example embodiment, the present invention is directed todistributed conferencing systems and methods to provide local meetingcontents to remote participants. A plurality of authorized source unitsare used to generate media content responsive to and representative ofrespective portions of the meeting contents, and in response to thegenerated media content, to develop one or more data streams. Each ofthese data streams represent separately-decodable real timerepresentation of at least a portion of the media content generated atthe respective authorized source. The separate data streams aretransmitted by the authorized source units to the same multicast IPgroup address for retrieval by remote participants.

According to a specific embodiment of the present invention, localmeeting contents are distributed to remote participants from a pluralityof authorized source units, with each source unit having a respectivesource unit IP address. A meeting announcement is transmitted to anannouncement multicast IP address, such as by specifying an IP addressfor each authorized source unit, date and time information for themeeting and/or a meeting multicast group IP address. Each of theplurality of authorized sources is used to search the meetingannouncement data and to generate media content responsive to andrepresentative of respective portions of the meeting contents, accordingto the date and time information for the meeting retrieved from themeeting announcement. In response to the generated media content, one ormore data streams are developed, each stream being aseparately-decodable real-time representation of at least a portion ofthe media content generated at the respective authorized source unit.The data streams are transmitted from the authorized source units to themeeting multicast group IP address retrieved from the meetingannouncement.

Consistent with another example embodiment of the present invention,local meeting contents are distributed from a plurality of source unitsto remote participants in a conferencing system. Logic circuitry at eachof the plurality of source units carries out the respective steps forthe source units, which include generating media content at each of theplurality of source units in response to and representative ofrespective portions of the meeting contents, and developing one or moredata streams at each of the plurality of source units in response to thegenerated media content. Each data stream is developed as aseparately-decodable real time representation of at least a portion ofthe media content generated at the respective source unit, andtransmitting each of the data streams from the one or more source unitsto the same multicast IP address.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a distributedconferencing system for providing local meeting contents to remoteparticipants includes an announcement unit and a plurality of sourceunits. The announcement unit is configured for periodically transmittinga meeting announcement to an announcement multicast IP address, wherethe meeting announcement specifies an IP address for a plurality ofauthorized source units, date and time information for the meeting, anda meeting multicast group IP address. Each of the source units searchesthe announcement multicast IP address for the meeting announcementcontaining the IP address of the respective authorized source unit, andretrieves the meeting multicast group IP address and date and timeinformation for the meeting from the meeting announcement. In accordancewith the date and time information for the meeting retrieved from themeeting announcement, the source units each generate media contentresponsive to and representative of respective portions of the meetingcontents, and in response to the generated media content, develop one ormore data streams. Each of the data streams is a separately decodablereal time representation of at least a portion of the media contentgenerated at the respective authorized source unit. The source unitstransmit the one or more data streams to the meeting multicast group IPaddress retrieved from the meeting announcement.

The above summary is not intended to describe each illustratedembodiment or every implementation of the present invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention may be more completely understood in consideration of thefollowing detailed description of various embodiments of the inventionin connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 shows a conferencing system in accordance with certain exampleembodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows a system-based flow diagram illustrating a system andrelated steps involved with multicast meetings, in accordance with otherexample embodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 3 shows a conferencing system, in accordance with certain exampleembodiments of the present invention;

FIG. 4 shows a system for providing multiple sets of conference meetingcontents for selection and receipt by remote participants, in accordancewith other example embodiments of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 shows a multicast IP source device, in accordance with anotherexample embodiment of the present invention.

While the invention is amenable to various modifications and alternativeforms, specifics thereof have been shown by way of example in thedrawings and will be described in detail. It should be understood,however, that the intention is not to limit the invention to theparticular embodiments described. On the contrary, the intention is tocover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling withinthe spirit and scope of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention is directed to conferencing systems and methods inwhich locally-generated conference meeting contents are provided in realtime to remotely-located participants, for example via multicastbroadcasting without the use of a centralized server. While the presentinvention is not necessarily limited to such applications, variousaspects of the invention may be appreciated through a discussion ofvarious examples using this context.

Aspects of the present invention involve simultaneous multicasting ofindividual data streams that represent various portions of a conferencemeeting contents to a common multicast IP address. As used in thisdocument, it will be appreciated that the term IP applies to current andfuture versions of IP, including IPv4 multicast and IPv6 multicast, andthat aspects of the invention apply to all of these. All streams for onemeeting (or conference room) are sent to a single multicast IP address.Remote participants who want to follow the meeting contents in real timecan join the multicast group associated with the IP address. In certainembodiments, the multicast streams are encrypted to limit access toauthorized users.

The data streams are developed from respective portions of the meetingcontents generated at one or more source units, which are equipped toprovide the data streams as separately-decodable real-timerepresentations of the portion of the meeting content generated at therespective source unit. These data streams are individually, directlyand simultaneously transmitted to the same multicast IP address. Suchtransmission accommodates the dropping and adding of individual datastreams without affecting the other data streams.

In accordance with certain embodiments, only authorized data streams arerouted to each receiver. This approach can be used, for example, tomitigate problems that may arise with open access multicastapplications, where anybody on a particular network (e.g., the Internet)can access the multicast. In one implementation, user authorization iscontrolled using an announcement that can be accessed by each potentialreceiver, the announcement including a list of source unit IP addressesthat are part of the conference, such as a list of IP addresses formicrophones in a conference room along with a slide presentation andother content sources. The delivery of this announcement can thus beused to control the multicast conference participation. When aparticular remote participant joins the multicast group for theconference, the remote participant provides the list of source IPaddresses received in the announcement so that only those data streamsoriginating from the identified sources are received. Accordingly, theannouncements can be used not only to control access to the conferenceas a whole, but can also control the type of access that each user has.For example, where certain content is restricted or not desired, thatcontent can be restricted. One such approach may involve a conference inwhich some participants are to share proprietary data, whereas otherparticipants are not to share the data (e.g., a legal or contractualconference). Another such approach may involve a multilingualconference, in which different participants receive only contentpertaining to a selected language that the participant can understand.Still another approach involves tailoring content for a participant'send device, such as by providing rich media content to robust deviceswhile providing a lower-bandwidth version of the content to less robustdevices, such as a mobile device.

As discussed in more detail below, an announcement as discussed abovemay also be used to automatically configure the source units. Forexample, when a source unit is activated, it searches the variousmeeting announcements for its own IP address to discover certaininformation about the meeting to which the announcement pertains,including the multicast IP address for data transmission, meeting timeand duration, and so forth.

In a generalized conference meeting environment, and as may beapplicable to various embodiments, the conference is divided intovarious sessions or working groups for which meetings take place indifferent conference rooms and often at the same time. Each conferenceroom session may be managed by a person chairing the group. In additionto a presenter, there may also be people taking notes for the minutes.The chair's function is to present the agenda and the status of thegroup at the beginning of the session, to introduce presenters, and tomoderate question and answer sessions. The presenter gives a slide-basedpresentation, which is displayed on a screen using a projector. Theremay also be one or more microphones on stands distributed in the roomfor audience members to add comments or ask questions.

In various embodiments, an end-to-end principle is used to providemeeting contents in independent data streams using a single multicast IPaddress. This allows the meeting contents to be broadcast for receipt byremote participants without the use of centralized servers, but ratherby endpoints sending multicast streams to other endpoints. This providesflexibility in setting up meetings, in customizing meeting content, andin accommodating the adding or dropping of individual media streamswithout disruption of the remaining meeting contents.

Distributed conferencing systems operating in accordance with certainembodiments which include several loosely-coupled components, such asmulticast sender, meeting microphones, slide presentation information,and so forth, as well as receivers. The senders send their content to aspecific multicast IP address for a particular meeting, and thereceivers are corresponding “tuned” to a specific multicast IP addressto which one or more of the senders are configured to transmit for aparticular meeting. For example, for a particular multicast IP addresssuch as “www.x.y.z,” content sources (senders) send packets to themulticast IP address. Conference participants (receivers) join orotherwise access the multicast IP address “www.x.y.z” and accordinglyreceive content designated to that address. In various contexts, contentsources may also be receivers. Because the distribution of the IPpackets is managed entirely by Internet (or other packet-based network)components, the conferencing can be managed independently from anycentralized server for mixing the various multimedia components.

Remote participants access the meeting contents over the Internet. Incertain embodiments, the meeting contents are presented to the remoteparticipants using a computer-based system (e.g., one or more computerprocessors) operating a software application designed for receiving andpresenting the meeting contents. In some implementations, the systemcontrols the receipt of data streams via an IPv6 (or IPv4) multicaststream from the Internet or, if the participant's ISP does not supportIPv6 or multicast, controls the receipt of data stream(s) as a unicaststream(s) through a multicast tunnel such as an AMT (automatic multicasttunnel), or through a server using a TURN protocol to convert multicastto unicast (TURN server). The system controls the mixing of multipleaudio streams within the meeting contents so that the mixed audio can beplayed using the audio output of a receiving participant's computer. Thesystem also controls the download and display of presentation slides orother documents, and can further display a current page (or otherinformation) according to an RTP protocol as received over the multicast(e.g., IPv6) stream. Text streams included in the meeting contents arealso displayed, for example as provided by a jabber room, as well as thenames of the current speaker(s) or local audience questioner(s) asreceived on the RTCP packet over multicast.

In certain implementations, remote participants (receivers) accessinformation about conference meetings via announcements provided on anInternet Media Guide, which contains human-readable content about themeeting such as date, time, duration, and description. The conferencemeeting information may also include machine readable content, such asthe multicast IP address, port, codec, and so forth. Announcements maybe implemented using any suitable protocol, such as Session AnnouncementProtocol (e.g., SAP—RFC 2974) which utilizes multicast to periodicallybroadcast announcements. A potential remote participant's system listenson a multicast IP address specified for announcements, and can readconference descriptions, select a meeting, and “tune in” to themulticast IP address, port, codec, etc., listed in the announcement forthe selected meeting in a manner such as described above. As SAP isprovided in a distributed manner, there need be no central point fromwhich meetings are set up and announcements are sent.

In connection with another example embodiment, one or more of speakers,chairpersons, local audience participants, and so forth are identifiedusing a badge that includes an RFID card programmed with name, title,function, employer, email address, or other types of identificationinformation. In certain embodiments, one or more of the variousmicrophones, such as the presenter's microphone, chair microphone, andaudience microphones providing content to a meeting are equipped withRFID card readers that automatically read the information related to theperson using the associated microphone. The identification informationcan then be provided in the meeting content data streams so that remoteparticipants are able to see who is speaking.

In some embodiments, different multicast source units participating in aparticular conference include independent units that are installed in alocation (e.g., in a room) at which the conference is taking place. Eachof the source units develops one or more data streams representing aportion of the meeting contents, and transmits the data stream(s)directly as an IPv6 multicast RTP stream. In this way, each of thesource units of a conference room transmits independent andseparately-decodable data streams, which permits the system to drop oradd individual data streams without disrupting the broadcast of otherdata streams.

In some implementations, the source units further provide differentstreams for different types of content, such as audio and video content,and can transmit the streams to different IP addresses if appropriate.For example, different audio streams can also be provided from differentlocations to facilitate the generation of audio effects, such assurround-sound effects, at recipient devices.

In an example implementation, each of a plurality of source unitsdevelops one or more data streams from media content generated inresponse to a respective portion of the meeting contents, the portionsof the meeting contents being apportioned based on the originator of thecontent. There may be a single source for a single participant at aparticular source unit, or multiple sources involving one or moreparticipants and/or other media content sources. For instance, a sourceunit may receive content from each conference room chair, a presenter,audience microphone stands and from scribes entering notes and commentsvia a jabber function. Other sources may include a presentation systemor computer, such as a video screen or computer that provides documents,slides or video as part of the meeting. Each source unit collects mediafrom one or more local content sources coupled thereto, and provides thecollected media as streaming media to an IP address for the meeting.This content, together with content from any other source units, isaccordingly provided to each recipient and, as such, may include one ormore recipients as each source unit.

In certain embodiments, meeting source units are automaticallyconfigured in response to their respective access to, and utilizationof, information in the same (or similar) multicast announcementsprovided to different receivers. For example, each source unit thatgenerates and transmits meeting contents (e.g., a presenter microphone)accesses and receives all the announcements for all the conferences thatare provided using a multicast announcement protocol. Each source unitparses and searches for its IP address inside each announcement. If anIP address match is found, then the source unit determines meetinginformation, such as the time and multicast IP address informationnecessary to transmit data streams, from the matching announcement. Thesource unit also discovers the codec, port, duration, and so forth fromthe announcement for a particular stream. The announcement for thereceivers and the source units can be the same announcement or adifferent announcement.

To prepare an announcement for a particular meeting, the IP address ofeach source unit used for that meeting is inserted in the announcementalong with other pertinent and descriptive information as may benecessary and/or useful for the meeting. In certain implementations, theprepared announcement is digitally signed as an added measure ofsecurity. Multicasting of meeting announcements in this manner can thusbe used to help ensure that remote participants listen to authorizedsource IP addresses, and that the source units for each meeting willeach start to send data streams at a proper time, to the right multicastIP address, and with a proper configuration.

According to another embodiment, each source unit is set up locally oncethe unit arrives at a conference room that is proper for a particularmeeting. This can be accomplished in a number of different manners. Forexample, each source unit could receive data over a local transmission(wireless or otherwise). This local transmission would be such that itis only available to participants that are physically in the room.Examples include short-range wireless transmission or hard-wiredtransmission (e.g., USB connection or a memory card). The localtransmission could include a security code that allows the device toproperly interface with the announcement (e.g., proper digitalsignature). In a particular implementation, a single source unit orcomputer provides the locally transmitted data. This can allow for ameeting organizer to authorize/confirm each source unit.

One such implementation may involve, for example, a meeting havingseveral participants using laptop computers; each computer accesses themulticast IP address via its respective Internet connectivity. Eachlaptop computer thus acts as both a source of data (e.g., a built-inmicrophone and/or webcam) and a recipient of data (e.g., for presentingaudio, video and/or documents/slides), and further can be used toidentify the participant using the laptop.

In one implementation, each chair source unit has a microphone with anoutput that feeds directly into a computer (e.g., having a smallform-factor) that is powered by Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) and sends RTP(Real-time Transport Protocol) over IPv6 multicast. The chair computermay also be connected to (and/or include) an RFID reader foridentification of the individual(s) performing the meeting room chairfunction. For example, when a chairperson places an RFID card receivedduring the conference registration process in front of the base of thechair microphone (where the RFID reader may be conveniently located),the RFID card is read and used in the conference. Using such anapproach, the name, email address and/or other information about thechairperson contained on the RFID card may be sent in data packets(e.g., a RTCP SDES packet) as part of a conference data stream toidentify the data stream(s) as originating from the chair source unitendpoint.

In keeping with this particular implementation, different source unitsor media sources for a conference may have similar features. Forexample, the source unit for a presentation speaker may include similarfeatures as the chair source unit, with the following differences.Because the speaker is more mobile in the conference room than thechair, the speaker's unit is powered by battery, uses a lavaliermicrophone, and sends the multicast stream wirelessly, for example usingEthernet over Bluetooth or WiFi. The speaker source unit alsocommunicates with a wireless device that the speaker uses to control thepresentation slides. Such wireless device sends a redundant RTP streamover IPv6 multicast that contains the number of the current page.

Each audience microphone stand in the conference room also functionslike the chair microphone, with variations as appropriate (e.g., theRFID reader may be larger in order to be able to directly read the RFIDtag of the person standing in front of the microphone in accommodationof different body sizes and badge-wearing preferences). Using RFIDreaders for audience microphones facilitates the identification ofaudience members, rather than relying on the audience member to statetheir name and affiliation, and further permits desirable identificationsuch as by displaying a participant's name in a conference when thatparticipant is speaking and/or when video capturing the participant'simage is displayed. Similarly, conference room scribes may use computersrunning software that receive user inputs for meeting-related notes orcomments, which can be transmitted using, for example, Text Over IP onan IPv6 multicast stream.

The RFID tag is also used in a distributed manner. Rather than storingan identifier in each RFID tag that is used to match a name in adatabase, certain embodiments of the present invention utilize RFID tagsthat contain the name, email address, or other information identifyingthe local participant. In this way, each microphone's RFID reader candirectly read the local participant's information and annotate themulticast stream with the information.

Other embodiments are directed to a touch screen or touch pad device viawhich inputs are provided as part of a multicast meeting (e.g., with thedevice acting as a source) or as a recipient device for displayingmeeting content. For instance, a hand-held mobile device having a touchscreen input can be used as a source unit to gather audio, image and/orvideo data to provide as content for the meeting. Such a hand-helddevice can also be used as a receiving device to present meetingcontents (e.g., audio and video) to an end recipient.

In certain embodiments, source unit participation is actively controlledin response to user inputs. For instance, a chair person may control theauthorization of source units that are to provide data streams to amulticast IP address for a particular conference. This allows customizedmeeting contents to be broadcast to the remote participants, and mayalso provide a way to ensure that only content from official sources areprovided in the multicast. For example, multicast protocol generallysupports the ability of anybody with access to send data to themulticast group, and as such any remote participant may be able to send(unofficial) data that becomes part of the multicast broadcast of themeeting contents. The ability to identify only authorized sources aspart of the multicast transmission may be used to prevent suchintrusions. Authorization control can also be used to prioritizeparticipants, such as by giving priority to main speakers or payingparticipants, relative to guests. Similarly, participants may be limitedin their access as a receive-only connection, without the ability to addcontent to the meeting.

In other embodiments, participation is handled on a relatively openscale. For instance, when remote participants are limited in number orlimited to pre-identified participants (perhaps with aid of encryptedaccess), participation by all remote participants can be allowed and/oreven encouraged. The system may also permit remote participants tochoose to participate with each other. For instance, two colleagueslocated remotely from one another may subscribe to streams from oneanother. These participants can use their own source units orsoftware-configured home computer to generate media streams.

When other media content such as audio, video, images or documents areto be part of a conference, the respective streams are sent using anapproach such as RTP (real-time transport protocol). When available,RFID information is sent using the control protocol for RTP, named RTCP.This protocol can carry personal (name and email) information, andassociate audio/video streams with the personal information as belongingto the same source. In certain implementations, information such asphysical location of the various source units in the conference room mayalso be associated with the audio/video streams, for example to providea 3D audio representation of the conference, allowing remoteparticipants to experience the meeting contents as if listening in themiddle of the conference room.

The identification information is used in a variety of other manners, inaccordance with various example embodiments. For example, video streamsmay include video captured by several video cameras. Rather thantransmitting all of the shots at once, a video camera shot that capturesa currently active speaker(s) can be transmitted or otherwise presented.Control for this selective presentation may, for example, be effected ata source unit receiving two or more sets of media data (e.g., a sourcecoupled to several microphones and cameras), or at a receiver thatreceives all streams and presents one or more based upon configuration,such as may be set by a particular user. These approaches can beparticularly useful where participants move within a conference area andare thereby associated with different source units, depending upon theircurrent location. Other options include, showing a static image of thecurrent speaker, such as a pre-submitted photograph or a snap shot takenin response to detecting audio from a speaker.

In one implementation, a receiver computer at a remote participants'location generates a small pop-up type of indicator that identifiescurrent speakers, and may also include related data such as photographs,video images, and textual information. In a similar manner, other inputsfrom speakers, such as text or other data, can also be presented in suchpop-ups. The remote participants can be allowed to view several imageareas in addition to a main image. Thus, there may be a videopresentation (e.g., slides) that takes up a portion of the display, andother portions of the display (overlaid, tiled or otherwise arranged onthe screen) can show data from one or more of the source units. Thus,the system permits a participant associated with a source unit toprovide textual input for viewing without interrupting audio from thecurrent speaker. Additionally, remote participant receiver computers canpermit users to adjust the media presentation from any particularsource. For example, individual volume control, muting, or minimizationof video display can be controlled for each source unit and/or therespective data streamed therefrom.

In certain embodiments, the conference room also includes a computerconfigured for logging into a multicast session and running an instanceof remote participant software (as a receiver computer) as discussedabove. With the audio output of the computer connected to an externalamplification system in the conference room and the video output of thecomputer connected to a video display device (e.g., a projector), thelocal audience can see and hear the conference as it is being presentedto the remote participants.

In some applications, meetings are recorded for playback at a later timeusing, for example, a server to listen in on the multicast in a mannerthat is similar to any other remote participant. The server effectivelyacts like such a participant and, where appropriate, runs participantsoftware as discussed herein. As such, such a recording-participantserver can be located anywhere on the packet-based network (e.g.,Internet). The meeting presentation is saved so that users can connectto a web site and follow the presentation, such as by using unicast.

The various embodiments as discussed herein may be implemented using avariety of structures and related operations/functions, which mayinvolve a variety of hardware and software solutions. As generallydiscussed herein, an application can represent software stored on astorage medium. When the software is executed by a processing circuit,such as a micro-processor, one or more functions of the invention arecarried out or facilitated. Some applications can be implemented as alogic circuit, such as by transferring functional software code to aprogrammable logic array. In another instance, an integrated logiccircuit is designed to carry out one or more functions. Similarly, oneor more embodiments as described herein may be computer-implemented orcomputer-assisted, as by being coded as software within a coding systemas memory-based codes or instructions executed by a computer processor,microprocessor, PC or mainframe computer. References to the termsoftware may therefore be implemented in these manners. Suchcomputer-based applications are implemented using one or moreprogrammable circuits that include at least one computer-processor andinternal/external memory and/or registers for data retention and access.One or more embodiments may also be implemented in various other formsof hardware such as a state machine, programmed into a circuit such as afield-programmable gate array, implemented using electronic circuitssuch as digital or analog circuits. In addition, various embodiments maybe implemented using a tangible storage medium that stores instructionsthat, when executed by a processor, performs one or more of the steps,methods or processes described herein. These applications andembodiments may also be used in combination; for instance certainfunctions can be implemented using discrete logic (e.g., a digitalcircuit) that generates an output that is provided as an input to aprocessor.

Turning now to the figures, various embodiments are shown and may beimplemented in connection with one or more embodiments as discussedabove and/or as presented in the claims. Beginning with FIG. 1, adistributed conferencing system 100 provides local meeting contents inconnection with another example embodiment. Contents are generatedwithin a conference room 110, and sent to remote participants (User 1through User N) via multicast broadcasting. In a generalized conferenceroom environment, the meeting content to be provided to remoteparticipants may originate from one source or many sources, for examplean audio feed of a presenter along with presentation slides andoptionally a video feed of the presenter, an audience microphone forquestion and answer sessions, an audio feed from a meeting chair, a textfeed including notes and comments generated concurrently with thepresentation, and so forth.

FIG. 1 shows (by way of example) four source units, each of whichdevelops one or more data streams representative of generated mediacontent associated with a portion of meeting contents for a particularmeeting. For example, Source Unit 1 may receive audio output from achair microphone along with information from an RFID card reader thatidentifies the chair to develop two data streams, Stream A and Stream B.Similarly, Source Unit 1 may generate separate audio and video streamsto respectively provide Stream A and Stream B. Each of the developeddata streams A-H are multicast via the same multicast IP address, asconceptually indicated in FIG. 1, for example using IPv6 multicastprotocols.

Remote participants, for example User 1 through User N, can receive themulticast broadcast of data streams from conference room 110 using themulticast IP address specified for the meeting. For presentation of thedata streams, each remote participant's computer runs an instance of asoftware program that mixes the audio streams into a single audiooutput, displays any presentation slides, and displays any textualinformation. An example of such a program is “Zap” available from (see,e.g., http://www.croczilla.com/zap), which is an open-source multimediacommunication platform. Other example programs include media player-typeprograms, such as the VLC media player available from VideoLAN(www.videolan.org), which can be used to listen to the audio from apresentation. Where such programs do not support IPv6 (or IPv4)multicasting, access is provided through a multicast-to-unicast tunnel,such as a TURN server. The tunnel receives multicast broadcast streamsand provides the received multicast streams as a unicast stream toremote participants who subscribe to and log into the server. Whenproviding for receipt of the multicast streams at a server for unicastdistribution, the meeting contents as provided to the remoteparticipants can be recorded for later download or playback by userslogged on to the server.

FIG. 2 illustrates a system and approach for distributed meeting anddistributing meeting contents, in accordance with certain embodiments.Prior to the specified date and time for a meeting, a meetingannouncement 210 is created and broadcast to a meeting announcementmulticast IP address, for example using a SAP protocol. The meetingannouncement 210 includes human-readable information (or informationthat can be presented in human-readable form), such as a title anddescription for the meeting, the meeting date, time and duration, and soforth. The meeting announcement 210 further includes machine readableinformation about the meeting, including the multicast group IP addressfor the meeting, as well as the IP addresses of the source unitsproviding the meeting content data streams. This information may be usedon both sender (source unit 220) and receiver (remote participant 230)side components, as discussed herein. In certain embodiments, all themeeting announcements 210 for meetings to be distributed in accordancewith the present invention are searchable and retrievable from the samemulticast IP address.

A remote participant 230 accesses and initiates a search 231 of themeeting announcements 210 for one or more particular meetings that theremote participant 230 wishes to attend. Upon selection of a meeting,the remote participant 230 receives the multicast group IP address 232for the selected meeting, and which also, in certain instances, includesthe IP addresses for the source units that will be developing andtransmitting the data streams representing the meeting contents. Inembodiments where the remote participant 230 receives the source unit IPaddresses, the source unit IP addresses are supplied by the remoteparticipant 230 to the multicast group IP address for the meeting as away of requesting which data streams to receive. As such, even ifunauthorized sources (such as other remote participants) try to transmitinformation to the multicast group IP address for the meeting, theremote participant 230 will only receive the data streams from thespecified source units.

The authorized meeting content source units may be altered or updated atany time. For example, a remote participant may place a request (forexample via email or chat room) to be added to the authorized sources inorder to ask a question or provide a comment, much like a live audiencemember.

On the sender side, each of the source units 220 for a meeting developand transmit data streams 223 representing a portion of the meetingcontents to the same multicast group IP address at block 240 asspecified for the meeting. In certain embodiments, the contents of themeeting announcements 210 may be used to automatically configure thesource units 220 for the meeting. For example, when activated eachsource unit 220 initiates search criteria 221 for searching the variousmeeting announcements 210 for instances of that source unit's IPaddress. When the source unit's IP address is found in a meetingannouncement, the meeting information 222 is retrieved by the sourceunit 220. The meeting information includes the multicast group IPaddress for the meeting, as well as information relating to the meetingdate, time and duration, in addition to the IP addresses of theauthorized source units. As such, each source unit 220 is correctlyconfigured to develop and transmit data streams to the correct multicastgroup 240 at the correct times.

FIG. 3 schematically shows an example arrangement of source units for adistributed conferencing system 300. In this arrangement, the sourceunits include a meeting chair unit 320, a presenter unit 330, a slidepresentation unit 340, audience microphone units 350A and 350B, and ajabber unit 360. Each of the meeting chair unit 320, presenter unit 330,and audience microphone units 350A and 350B include microphones thatproduce audio content for the meeting. In addition, each of these unitsmay also include an RFID card reader that reads the name, email address,or other information identifying the person speaking at the associatedmicrophone so that the remote participant is provided this informationas part of the multicast.

In embodiments utilizing RFID identification, each local participant tothe meeting receives an RFID card as part of the registration process.An exemplary RFID card that can be used in connection with these andother embodiments is an ISO 15693 clamshell card with enough memory tostore the name and email address of the meeting participant. The RFIDcard can be used as a regular badge on one side (e.g., including printedname and affiliation) and can include additional information, such assupport advertisement, on the other side. A 13.56 MHz frequency RFID isused to permit the RFID card to be used as storage, provide for acommunication protocol that detects collision so that multiple cards canbe in the vicinity of a detector at the same time, and allow a card tobe read as far away as 11 inches to accommodate different heights andbadge-wearing preferences.

Referring again to FIG. 3, in an example embodiment, the chair sourceunit 320 includes a conference-type microphone, the base of whichincludes an RFID card reader, and a small computer powered over anEthernet cable. The computer reads the RFID card, samples audio comingfrom the microphone and sends RTCP and RTP packets to the multicastgroup of the room over the Ethernet cable. An exemplary chair microphonemay be built from the following parts: a Linksys 12 Volt Power OverEthernet Adapter Kit, an EPIA-PX5000G Pico ITX Mainboard as availablefrom E-itx of Fremont, Calif., an APSX RW-210 RFID Reader, and aunidirectional gooseneck microphone. There may be multiple chairmicrophones per conference room, and in some instances, three or fewer.Multiple chair microphones may be used to accommodate panel discussionsand moderated debates.

In an example embodiment, the presenter source unit 330 uses a wirelessmicrophone setup, for example implementing a modified cell phone thatreceives audio from a lavalier microphone clipped to the presenter andsends RTP over a Wi-Fi interface. An RFID reader is attached over a USBconnector and a USB/RS-232 converter to provide the presenter's ID andemail. The cell phone is also equipped with a cordless control unit usedto change the pages of the presentation. An exemplary presentermicrophone is built from the following parts: an APSX RW-210 RFID Readerwith a C-100 Converter, an Openmoko Freerunner, a USB/RS232 converter, alavalier microphone, and a cordless “presenter” slide control unit.Generally, one wireless microphone is used for each conference room.

In an example embodiment, slide presentation unit 340 provides userinteraction functions via a computer having an input device such as asmall touch screen. A presenter can use the input device to controlslides or other video functions such as zooming, moving and drawingfunctions. The input device commands used to change the slides, orotherwise modify their presentation, are also sent as a data stream inthe multicast so that the right slide is displayed at the right time forremote participants. Rather than transmitting real-time video, the slidepresentation for the conference meeting may be handled by transmitting aURL for the presentation along with the current slide number. Eachreceiver uses the URL to download the presentation, and uses the pagenumber embedded in the video stream to select the current page.

In an example embodiment, the audience microphone units 350A and 350Bare unidirectional microphones mounted on a stand. A large RFID readeris installed directly on the stand, roughly at the same height as anRFID badge worn by an audience member when standing at the microphone totalk. An exemplary audience microphone is built from the followingparts: a Linksys 12 Volt Power Over Ethernet Adapter Kit, anEPIA-PX5000G Pico ITX Mainboard, an APSX RW-310 RFID Reader, aunidirectional condenser microphone, and a microphone stand. One or twostand microphones can be used in each conference room.

Referring again to FIG. 3 and in connection with certain embodiments, amixing box 370 is used in a manner similar to interaction with a remoteparticipant to receive the conference meeting contents from themulticast IP address. The content received at the mixing box 370 ismixed using an instance of a program such as Zap (mentioned above), oranother suitable program used by the remote participants, and displayedin the conference room on a projector unit 380 and via the conferenceroom's audio amplification system 390. In this way, the localparticipants are able to experience what the remote participants areseeing and hearing.

FIG. 4 schematically shows a distributed conferencing system 400 thatprovides meeting contents from multiple different conference roomsCR1-CR3. The meeting contents for each of the conference rooms areassociated with, and transmitted to, a different multicast group IPaddress. The conference room contents are selectable by remoteparticipants, such as Users 1-N, by selecting to receive contents fromthe associated multicast IP address, for example based on the meetingannouncement protocols discussed above. Alternatively, a remoteparticipant without multicast capabilities can access the meetingcontents in real time by logging onto a multicast-to-unicast tunnel,which converts the multicast streams into a unicast stream, asindicated.

FIG. 5 shows a multicast IP source device 500, in accordance withanother example embodiment of the present invention. The source device500 may, for example, be coupled to one or more input devices such as anaudio or video capture device, or may include such devices internally.For example, the source device 500 may be a mobile hand-held devicehaving input devices such as a microphone and/or camera, and communicateinformation captured via the input devices to a multicast IP address asdiscussed above, via one or more network connections. Accordingly, therepresentations in FIG. 5 show various functionalities of the device500, some or all of which may be implemented in connection with variousexample embodiments.

By way of example, the multicast IP source device 500 includes an audioinput circuit 510 and a video input circuit 520. In some applications,these respective circuits 510 and 520 receive audio and video datacaptured by an external device such as a microphone or camera, coupledto the device 500 via the respective inputs, or via anothercommunications circuit to which the input circuits are connected. Suchcommunications circuits are represented by wireless communicationcircuit 530 (e.g., Wi-Fi and/or Bluetooth), and wired communicationcircuit 540 (e.g., a USB port or Ethernet connection). In otherapplications, these respective circuits 510 and 520 include capturedevices, such as a microphone and camera. The device 500 may furtherinclude an RFID reader circuit 550, which reads RFID information from auser at the device in a manner as described herein. Captured data may bestored in local memory, such as flash memory 560.

The multicast IP source device 500 also includes a network interfacecircuit 570 that is connected to a network access point forcommunicating over the Internet. For example, the network interfacecircuit 570 may include a Wi-Fi circuit configured to communicate with alocal router via 802.xx wireless standards, or a wired Ethernet circuitconfigured to communicate over an Ethernet network. In otherimplementations, the network interface circuit 570 is a mobile devicecommunications circuit, such as for communicating to a mobile telephonestation using cellular or other types of mobile technology (e.g., 2G,3G, 4G or advanced iterations of mobile telecommunications standards).

One or more iterations of the device 500 may be implemented inconnection with one or more example embodiments described herein. Forexample, Source Unit 1 of FIG. 1, or source unit 220 of FIG. 2 mayinclude the source device 500. Similarly, the device 500 may also act asa recipient device such as represented by User 1 in FIG. 1, or remoteparticipant 230 of FIG. 2. The device 500 may similarly be implementedwith the systems and approaches shown in and described in connectionwith one or both of FIGS. 4 and 5.

The various embodiments described above are provided by way ofillustration only and should not be construed to limit the invention.Based upon the above discussion and illustrations, those skilled in theart will readily recognize that various modifications and changes may bemade to the present invention without strictly following the exemplaryembodiments and applications illustrated and described herein. Suchmodifications and changes do not depart from the true spirit and scopeof the present invention, including that set forth in the followingclaims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: using a data server toprovide access to a distributed conferencing system including aplurality of conference rooms, wherein each of the plurality ofconference rooms is associated with an input/output circuit fortransmitting data over a network, by: transmitting conferenceannouncement data to an announcement multicast internet protocol (IP)address, the conference announcement data specifying data for aparticular conference including a conference multicast group IP addressand IP addresses for each of the conference rooms involved in theconference; and causing the input/output circuit respectively incommunication circuits associated with each of the plurality ofconference rooms to: retrieve a portion of the conference data thatidentifies the input/output circuit as being involved in the conference;in response to the retrieved conference data, generate conferencecontent responsive to and representative of respective portions of theconference contents; in response to the generated conference content,develop one or more data streams, each data stream being aseparately-decodable real-time representation of at least a portion ofthe generated conference content; and transmit the one or more datastreams to the conference multicast group IP address in the retrievedconference data.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein each conference roomincludes a plurality of input/output circuits for transmitting data overthe network.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the input/output circuitsinclude at least one mobile device including a microphone andcommunications circuitry.
 4. The method of claim 1, including causingthe input/output circuit at each of the plurality of conference roomsto, in response to the retrieved conference data, generate conferencecontent including image or video data.
 5. The method of claim 1,including causing the input/output circuit at each of the plurality ofconference rooms to, in response to the retrieved conference data,generate conference content including text data.
 6. The method of claim1, including causing the input/output circuit at each of the pluralityof conference rooms to, in response to the retrieved conference data,generate conference content including audio data.
 7. The method of claim2, further including, causing the plurality of input/output circuits ineach of respective conference room to: capture input from an individualusing at least one input/output circuit; receive information about theindividual; and transmit the received information as part of arespective data stream.
 8. The method of claim 1, further including, ina computer server, receiving the data streams transmitted to themulticast group IP address, receiving, from clients, requests for thedata streams, consolidating the data streams into a single data stream,and transmitting, as a unicast stream, the consolidated data stream tothe requesting clients.
 9. The method of claim 3, including causing theinput/output circuit at each of the plurality of conference rooms togenerate conference content by: capturing audio from a conferenceparticipant, and formatting the captured audio according to a digitalstream format, the digital stream format including data that identifiesthe conference participant.
 10. The method of claim 1, including causingthe input/output circuit at each of the plurality of conference rooms touse a digital signature to validate the conference announcement data.11. An apparatus configured and arranged to: provide access to adistributed conferencing system including a plurality of conferencerooms, each associated with at least one input/output circuitry fortransmitting data over a network, the distributed conferencing system toprovide conference contents to the plurality of conference rooms using aconference multicast group internet protocol (IP) address; and cause oroperate each of the input/output circuitry to provide the conferencecontents to the plurality of conference rooms by: generating conferencecontent responsive to and representative of respective portions of theconference contents; in response to the circuitry accessing thegenerated conference content and identifying its IP address in acorresponding announcement for a conference, the conference announcementspecifying data for a particular conference including a conferencemulticast group IP address and IP addresses for each of the conferencerooms involved in the conference, automatically configuring theinput/output circuitry and developing at least one data stream, eachdata stream being a separately decodable real time representation of atleast a portion of the conference content generated at the input/outputcircuitry; and transmitting the at least one data stream to theconference multicast group IP address.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11,wherein the announcement includes an IP address of each respectiveinput/output circuitry involved in the conference and additionalinformation pertinent to the conference.
 13. The apparatus of claim 11,wherein the announcement includes an IP address of each respectiveinput/output circuitry involved in the conference and additionalinformation pertinent to the conference, and wherein the announcement isdigitally signed as a measure of security.
 14. The apparatus of claim11, wherein at least one of the input/output circuits includes a mobiledevice having a user interface configured to accept user inputs and toprovide the user inputs as part of the generated conference content. 15.A method comprising: providing access to a distributed conferencingsystem that provides conference contents to a plurality of conferencerooms from a plurality of mobile devices, each mobile device includinginput/output circuitry configured to process communication data, using ameeting multicast group internet protocol (IP) address; causing themobile devices to perform the steps of: in response to generatingconference content responsive to and representative of respectiveportions of the conference contents, identifying an IP addressassociated with one of the mobile devices in a correspondingannouncement for a conference, the conference announcement specifyingdata for a particular conference including the multicast group IPaddress and IP addresses for each of the conference rooms involved inthe conference, automatically configuring the mobile device anddeveloping at least one data stream as a separately decodable real-timerepresentation of at least a portion of the conference content;transmitting the at least one data stream to the meeting multicast groupIP address; and configuring the input/output circuit of at least twomobile devices to transmit to a common conference multicast group IPaddress after configuration data is received from another data source,and connecting to the conference multicast group IP address tocommunicate the conference contents to the plurality of conference roomsvia the conference multicast group IP address.
 16. The method of claim15, further including, in the input/output circuit at one of the mobiledevices, accessing an announcement that includes a list of authorizeddata streams; subscribing to the conference multicast group IP addressto receive a plurality of the data streams; displaying the conferencecontent in response to the list of authorized data streams; andproviding an interface that allows for individual control of multipleones of the data streams.
 17. The method of claim 15, further including,in the input/output circuit at one of the mobile devices accessing anannouncement that includes a list of authorized data streams; andproviding an interface that allows for individual control of multipleones of the data streams.
 18. The method of claim 15, further includingmixing the streams and presenting the conference content to theplurality of conference rooms participating in the conference.
 19. Themethod of claim 15, further including, in the input/output circuit atone of the mobile devices, tailoring content for the plurality ofconference rooms based on a participant's end device and using theannouncement.